Join the Conversation

Tully: Crack down on illegal gun use to reduce Indy's violence

Matthew Tully
10:58 p.m. EDT July 8, 2014

An employee with a holstered .45 handgun stands behind the counter Tuesday, April 6, 2010 at Caswells Shooting Range in Gilbert, Ariz. Gov. Jan Brewer has signed into law two bills supported by gun-rights activists. One of the bills signed Monday would broaden the state's current restrictions on local governments' ability to regulate or tax guns and ammunition.(AP Photo/Matt York)(Photo:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
)

A few people wrote me shortly after Saturday's day of violence — the city's latest day of violence — and lectured me not to make this a debate about guns.

They were right about one thing: This city's problems are deep and complicated, wrapped up in issues of absentee parents and childhood neglect, drug abuse and dysfunction, and, in many cases, a culture that embraces and glorifies violence and, too often, a complete lack of respect for just about everything.

But make no mistake: it's also about guns. More specifically, it is about a city in which people who shouldn't be allowed to carry guns — meaning those who by age or criminal history aren't legally eligible to carry them — roam the streets with guns at their sides. It's about a city that is suffering from an epidemic of people who are willing and even eager to use those guns to take out anyone in their path — rivals, strangers, police officers, store clerks, or residents out for a morning stroll.

Why do we need to focus on guns? Because they are the most common factor in the violence plaguing this city. Taking that issue off the table — and that is what so many people want to do — is both illogical and a guarantee that this city will deteriorate further.

Let's be clear: There are many things that we need to fix to make this a safe and stronger city. Somehow, we have to convince young people to hold off on parenthood until they are ready. Somehow, we have to convince young males to act like men and take care of the children they father. Somehow, we have to convince many young people that there is a future for them if they can make the right choices. Somehow, we have to convince those on the edge that there is a great value in education. Somehow, we have to infuse more neighborhoods with hope and a belief that all is not lost and that there are many people and groups eager to support them.

Those are worthy goals. But they are also longterm goals. There is only one thing that will have a short-term impact on the violent crime that is destroying this great city, and that is a wide scale, sustained, serious-as-all-hell crackdown on the illegal possession of guns.

For too long, so-called minor gun crimes that foretell worse future crimes have been dismissed, plead away and, in general, not taken seriously. The message has been clear: You can illegally carry a gun in this city and, chances are, not pay a stiff penalty for it. Police note that people who served short sentences for previous gun crimes have committed a shocking percentage of this year's homicides.

That has to change. The message has to get out that even minor crimes involving a gun — as minor as illegal possession of a gun — will result in painful consequences. The city should follow U.S. Attorney Joe Hogsett's lead and fiercely target those who provide criminals with the guns used in violent crimes.

Why? Because when criminals know they can wander the streets with a gun, and when many of them have no regard for anything, things like the mass shooting in Broad Ripple occur. So many of this city's shootings can be tied to a minor grievance — a bump while walking down the sidewalk — that turned tragic because of the illegal possession of a gun.

New York City has experienced a reduction in violent crime that is as impressive as it is hard to believe. The number of homicides annually has dropped from about 1,500 to less than 350 over the past two decades, and many tie that in part to a controversial stop-and-frisk policy that, for all of the valid concerns it raised, made clear you could not wander the streets with a gun in your pocket. (Police will tell you there is a big difference between a criminal having a gun in his pocket at the moment he loses his mind, and him having to run 15 blocks to his house to get it.)

I'm not endorsing the means that New York used, but as a city we have to see if there is a way to get closer to the results that city achieved. At a time when it seems that more people than ever have little regard for others, and a hair-trigger to go with that, we have to take the most effective tool of violence out of their hands.

Yes, we need more police. Yes, we need more effective programs that target at-risk children and families. Yes, we need to come together as a city and not let weekends like this past one define us.

But right here and right now we need our leaders to step up; to put politics aside and make clear that Indianapolis will not tolerate the illegal possession of guns. Every gun crime, from the bottom to the top, needs to be treated with a new severity. A new police task force, as has been discussed in the past, should focus solely on the illegal gun trade in the city. Those who illegally provide or sell guns used in crimes should lose their freedom.

We need to lessen the likelihood that there are guns in the pockets of two jerks who bump into each other on the sidewalk and can't control their emotions. We need to make it harder for kids wandering the streets looking for trouble to find the guns that turn that trouble into tragedy. We need to respect the police officers who patrol this city by making clear to the criminals they face that illegally possessing a gun will cost them dearly.

We can do many things to make this a safer city. Nothing would have a more immediate impact, though, than a crackdown on the illegal possession of guns.